Still No Shade at Mediterraneo Marine Park

In September 2025, Mediterraneo Marine Park in Malta underwent an official inspection that was presented as a scientific assessment of animal welfare. But from the beginning, the process was compromised. The inspection was carried out by a person with ties to the dolphinarium industry, someone who first and foremost represents the system, not the dolphins confined within it.

The full report has never been made public, and the summary report largely praises the dolphin and sea lion exhibits for meeting established European industry standards. It focuses on management and maintenance rather than whether the animals’ behavioral and biological requirements are actually being met. In its “Overall Welfare Conclusion,” the report claims that the “living spaces provide sufficient volume, depth, and functional complexity, including opportunities for avoidance, retreat, and social choice.”

The five dolphins and a sea lion at Mediterraneo Marine Park are surrounded by construction and rubble. This pool houses a sea lion. According to an inspector, who visited the site last September, the facility nevertheless meets European animal welfare standards. Credit: Waves Not Walls

This positive description is far from the dolphins’ reality. They are trapped in a grotesquely small space that contains no complexity whatsoever. They cannot leave, and they cannot choose anything fundamentally different.

While the report uses misrepresentative language like “choice” and “complexity,” it does at least acknowledge that something is missing: the dolphins have no shade. Alongside deteriorating infrastructure, the absence of shade was listed as an area for improvement. Members of the Waves Not Walls coalition had been warning about this for months before the inspection even took place, yet no meaningful action followed from the authorities or the facility itself.

Looking at the gloomy concrete tanks at Mediterraneo Marine Park, it’s impossible to comprehend how Maltese authorities have allowed this cruelty to continue for decades. While circus-like shows and dolphin encounter programs draw in paying tourists, it’s the dolphins who pay the ultimate price. One was captured in Cuba over 25 years ago; the other four were born in captivity – the offspring of wild-caught Cuban dolphins who have since died. Despite having months to improve conditions, the facility still has not provided the dolphins with even the most basic protection from the sun. Apparently, their suffering is simply not a consideration. Credit: Waves Not Walls

Recent drone footage captured by Maltese members of the Waves Not Walls coalition shows the same depressing conditions. As temperatures rise in Malta, the dolphins remain fully exposed to the sun’s rays, with no possibility of escape, no deeper waters to retreat into, and no control over their environment.

The lack of shade says a great deal about how little those in charge of the dolphins’ welfare actually care. It reflects the careless attitude of the facility, which continues to operate and profit from using the dolphins in shows and staged interactions with tourists as if nothing is wrong. It reflects the inaction of authorities who have taken no visible steps despite documented concerns, and it reflects a self-congratulatory system that labels these barren tanks “good welfare” while ignoring the most basic needs of the animals they confine.

It does not help the dolphins that the stadium they are confined in may live up to European industry standards when the standards themselves are profoundly insufficient, and while the facility has been given the green light to continue using marine mammals as tourist attractions, the dolphins remain under the same bleak conditions, still exposed, and still without even the most basic protection from the sun.

Eight months have passed since the inspection took place. The dolphins still have no shade.

Featured image: This is what “complexity” and “choice” looks like at Mediterraneo Marine Park. An official welfare inspection carried out last year claimed the dolphins’ living space provides opportunities for retreat and social choice, despite the dolphins being trapped in barren concrete tanks with no shade and nowhere to escape the relentless Maltese sun. Credit: Waves Not Walls